And it's just heartbreaking to see that we have staff that are too afraid to know where to take an issue without them being afraid of there being some recourse. And um so I'm just encouraging you or whoever to please look into talking to these teachers or the staff in a discrete way to see how you can help them and um resolve these things without them having to have a gag order per se. Um as I said, none of them can tell me what to do about the issue. And I had feel like because I don't have anybody in my corner to help me out that I'm going to need to go to the legal counsel um to be able to see if they can help me because this is an ongoing problem right now and it's still causing me stress because it's not been resolved.
I'm going to ask Miss Shapiro and um Dr. Lauren to keep me honest on this, but there are multiple factors that go into affecting class size. So ratio is one of those factors. I hope I'm not panicking you over there, but but Miss M Shapiro said to me this morning and and she's absolutely right. the larger the school is, the more students there are in a school, the easier it is to normalize class size. Where where you tend to get bubbles and where a slightly larger ratio impacts you more is when you're a smaller school. The smaller you are, the harder it is because you, you know, you only maybe have one or two teachers per grade level. And so when you get those bubbles, it's hard to solve those problems. And one of the things um that we've been working on as an exec team and working with the principles on is taking a look at some shifts in our enrollment patterns that are happening.
Thank you, Scott. Just under 500. So I mean I can get that line item cost for you for sure. But roughly went up about 17,000. Um but that's what dropped. So I mean this is more than 17. That's dropping that's dropping two items and bringing on these. And is this um sorry you did you did a great job explaining I'm going to ask to explain a little bit more. Is this are these things that we were managing internally or or is what XDR is going to do things that we weren't doing but need to now or it's needed to do but we weren't doing? Yeah. So, James kind of touched on that um a little bit, but it it was a a large resource um to to manage all this with the separate pieces being separated. So, you had to hop into one system, look for the trouble computer, hop in the next system, look at the trouble computer, hop in the next system, look at the trouble computer.
Um and that's pretty much all I have to say. And um I'm usually the one through the years that's the one that will say what most people are thinking and it it's probably just the way my brain works because I don't understand why other people don't speak up and for to preserve my own self-respect. I have to say something on behalf of myself and these other other staff members. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Um, I'm sure we'll have staff look into that and see if there's any type of resolution that can be taken by the district. Anyone else like to address the board at this time? If not, the only announcement we have is our next board meeting will be June 9th and uh it will be at 5:00 on this location. Um, so we need a motion to adjourn this uh meeting right now.
And so um one of the things that we noticed is that while we are not necessarily growing in the strictest sense of like if you look at you know day 10 to day 10 or whatever. What we discovered was when you compare day 100 to day 100, we actually grew by about 30 students from last year to this year. Check your check. I'm getting an honesty check here. So, so that has not happened since 2011, I think. Um, and you know, it's not a miracle, right? like it's 30ome kids. But when you think about that, 30some kids is like a significant amount of additional funding that's coming in to support teaching staff at the sites. And so in some ways some it's it's kind of like I'm not going to use Vegas as an example, but there are times in business when you're an entrepreneur where sometimes you have to invest to get a result back out.
So, it took a lot of time finding all these things. XDR is going to simplify that tremendously and and bring that time to solution down. Um and that's our goal here and plus the added security of after hours and and things like that talking across those pieces to do that isolation if something happens on device. Thank you. You're welcome. Questions on that before we move on. All right. Um, so the Arizona Department of Homeland Security. So, of course, not too long after we entered into our our our agreement a little over four years ago, uh, with our EA, um, the Department of Homeland Security, um, came out with their cyber readiness program, and that's funded by some federal and and local grants, and they provide resources to local, as you can see, and tribal government entities in Arizona. Quite an amazing program, quite honestly. Um, a lot of school districts and government, they don't have the money for these pieces, right?
And I think, you know, one of the things I heard tonight was about investing in our staff. So that way we're maintaining the changes that are occurring because of our our tight focus on the data wise process, the student outcomes focused governance. And as we're seeing the impacts and the change and the experience that our students are having and the outcomes that our students are experiencing, that's going to draw more people to us. Um, we've also focused on trying to have some world-class facilities with our recent rebuilds and and work that we've done to make improvements at our schools. And so, as all those things continue to come together, um, we despite the demographics that we struggle with because there's less kids, we actually, you know, saw this hint of growth for the first time. And I think it's important that we stay the course.
And that leaves them more susceptible. Um, they offered five different programs um for free um to school districts and these other government entities. And so we were already rolling in our agreement, right? So to just throw it all out and start wasn't and some of the pieces just weren't going to work for us. um they've changed some of the pieces since then. Like they're multiffactor, like everyone who went to it had a ton of trouble, right? So, we look very very closely at these pieces to see what we can now take advantage of moving forward. Um there's no guarantee that program will last forever. I'm sure someday there won't be money there and then districts will have to pay for that, right? Um but until that happens, then we this is a great time for us to take advantage of that and use a couple of those pieces.
And so one of the things that we're trying to do in partnership with the principles is we typically staff much tighter but and we were concerned about student loss this year but when we look at the actual data we see student growth. So we're revisiting those numbers and trying to work collaboratively with the principles to do our best to prevent some of those pockets from occurring even with the 27.5 to one. So we can't make any promises because I mean numbers are numbers but at the end of the day I think there may be some space within that within those numbers if we continue to see this movement from um decline in enrollment towards potential stability or growth in enrollment. So anything that I don't I don't anticipate growth enrollment. No I know but I do uh anticipate very slowed decline. it will be reflected uh when we discuss the proposed and adopted budget and um I will uh discuss that a little bit tonight with the revision.
So, um, so we're going to we're going to do that. Um, one piece of it Cisco duo. It's multifactor. Um, I'll let Scott talk this and I'll it doesn't matter. We can both. So, yeah. So, uh, I believe last year the state switched to Duo maybe two years now. But, um, anyways, uh, we've been a duo shop for our highle personnel um, here at the district office tech services. is anybody that has high level access, we Cisco duo them. Um, meaning, you know, you it's you have an app on your phone. Um, you put in your credentials, it'll do a secondary multiffactor authentication, um, ping your cell phone with, you know, either a one-time passcode or the app with the checkbox um, to allow you through. um with the state. What's nice is we can have the licensing for the entire staff um for free.
Yep. Yeah. And just one thing that I always want to make sure that we're not mixing the two is that this is not about me not investing in staff. I 150% that without staff in this institution it would crumble. There's no way that it would operate. So I never want that to be a sentiment. the the reality that we are facing as elected officials, as all this political stuff is going on, not federally, but locally, even just to the recent stuff that, you know, our state superintendent of education has been um pushing down us, it's going to get not easier. And as those things start happening, it's not because I'm not thinking about staff. I value every single one of you. And if I haven't done a good job out of that, then you should tell me because that's never the sentiment I want to send out.
So um that's a very big positive. Um CrowdStrike uh is the endpoint protection system that the state offers. Um, and I remember back in 2021, we trialled Cisco Secure Endpoint and CrowdStrike at the same time, and it made more sense at the time to go with the the Cisco product to include in that Cisco uh EA. Um but now being able to restructure everything and it's time to utilize the free resources from the state homeland security. Wasn't the crowd strike in the news within the last year or so? Yeah. Yes. Yes, it was. They were and and a little unfairly um because Yeah. They they weren't Go ahead. So that was a uh situation where Microsoft allowed through that update um which ended up backfiring on Crowdstrike more than anybody else. Um so they got the bad publicity. Um be assured I don't think they'd ever do that again.
But also, there's children that have no option when they come to an institution. There are kids, and I've said this time after time, that, you know, us as adults, we choose to have our jobs. We choose to wake up. And some kids in our institution, regardless if we lose 40% of our federal funding or not, they're going to be okay. It's going to be hard, but they will survive the system. There are students right now sitting in our classrooms that will not survive the system and dependent on the decisions that us five board members make up here when it comes to policies, when it comes to budget is a reflection of that. And one of the things I always like to say is that I'm not in this work for now or for the next year. I'm literally laying this work down for the next seven generations of Crane Elementary School District because whatever we do now is what's going to have ultimately that ultimate impact.
So it was it was interesting, right? Um but yeah, they're still the leader in this in this field. Um just so you know when we at policy meeting we were talking about the policy for multiffactor again this is uh Duo was a product we'd use we already multiffactor all staff members and we actually also multiffactor our students from the fifth grade through 12th grade um so we use a product through our identity management system right now um but we just feel that do is far better a better of a product and more secure and that's why uh as well we're trying to put that policy in place uh there for that um and we do also plan to uh multifactor down to the fourth grade. So that's gone amazingly well and when we present that out in the in the world, people just can't understand how we made that happen.
So that's where my mind is at. I never want to send out the sentiment. Um I think that creates more divisiveness in the hard times that we're in right now and we're about to face some stuff happened today nationally that can cause some other you know stuff. So it it's just a lot and we just want to make sure that I never want that to be the sentiment because that's not where my heart is. I love students. I love staff. Um but at the end of the day I love the students more and I'm just trying to make sure that on that I know Ariel. I'm sorry, Ariel. I'm sorry. Um, I love the babies, you know, because at the end of the day, they're the ones that get left out and whatever decisions we u make, they're going to be faced with the con consequences without having a say or they're just going to have to deal with it.
Um but it's gone well and I think it's been good as well for our students. So with the multiffactor, how often does that in regard to our students, how often do they have to authenticate or have do this perform this multiffactor authentication? Is that the right word? Yep. Am I saying that right? And are they doing the multiffactor authentication on the same device or are they doing it I mean students that whenever I do it if I do something on my computer I always get a something on my phone that says you know hey what are these two numbers and is this does this match up or whatever. So how does it work with the students? You want to explain that? Sure. Uh so that is once again through the rapid identity system. So that is taking place on the same device they're already using traditionally a Chromebook right.
So, that's where I come from. That's where I think about. That's why I ask questions. I push. It's never um coming from a place where I don't value. I value every single view, one of you. And I wish I had all the money in the world to give to you. I don't even get paid for this. and I wish I could just give all my money away to every single staff member, but um that's not the reality that we're in. So, I just want to make sure that we stay we're we're we're very careful about car saying that narrative that oh, if we don't do X, Y, and Z, it's because we don't care. That's not what it is. So, I value every single one of you. Um do we have any other questions or comments on this item? All right, with that, thank you very much.
Um when they enter in their password it's going to take them to that next step which is what they call pictograph. Uh the students are given three different sets of image at a time kind of like an oldfashioned capture almost but they choose one picture out of each of these three sets. So each time they log in they get nine pictures. They choose the one that they've pre-selected. They get the second set of nine and they repeat till they're done done all three. At that point, they're then granted access. They only do that upon logging to the Chromebook for the first time that day. So, at least once a day. The only other time would be is if they're using a lab computer or something like that. Okay. All right. So, on these other available resources, so we're using we're using two of them, right?
I appreciate every single one of you. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't find my I have too too many tabs opened. Okay. And with that being said, we go into my agenda that's frozen, but I'm assuming it's adjournment now. Yeah. Okay. So, I motion to adjurnn. No action. Perfect. So now we can commence our actual board meeting and we're going to start with the pled public budget hearing. Um the budget hearing for adoption of the revised number 3 2425 maintenance and operation district additional assistant budgets. Do we have any comments misses for the budget? Shapiro presents first. Perfect. And Miss Shapiro will go ahead and turn it over to you. Thank you madam president. Uh board members, superintendent man, I'm um pleased to present the May revised budget for the fiscal year 202425. Uh this is our final opportunity to ensure that we have the most accurate information when it comes to student data uh and also any kind of unanticipated uh funding ch changes that occur through the year.